Cooks 'hate' must stop: Vasiljevic

The Sydney Kings are one of the hottest talking pointing points after back-to-back Round 6 losses against South East Melbourne and Tasmania.

In particular, the play of NBL23 MVP Xavier Cooks, who is averaging just 10.6 points (including a career low 26.6 per cent from the free throw line), 6.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game.

But Australian Boomer Dejan Vasiljevic, who won two championships with Cooks in Sydney, leapt to the defence of the former Washington Wizards forward.

"People have to stop hating on Xavier Cooks," Vasiljevic said on Wednesday's episode of NBL Now.

"I'm over it because the reason he's probably not playing to the standard that a lot of people think is because he's not getting the ball where he should be.

"Trust me, allow him to initiate the offence and you'll see how easy it is for them moving forward.

"He provides a lot of presence for that team and I think the ball needs to run through him. If it does, I think they got a good chance of winning.

"There's players on the team that want to hold the ball a bit longer. This doesn't create stuff and it puts him in a hard situation."

Fellow NBL champion Mark Worthington also weighed in on the topic, calling for the University of Winthrop alum to be more aggressive with the ball in his hands.

"[Xavier] Cooks has been passive aggressive with his offence, his best basketball comes off when he attacks," Worthington said to CODE Sports.

The Kings, who are 3-5 on the Hungry Jack's NBL26 season, play at Brisbane (Saturday) and Melbourne (Monday) in Round 7, with both matches broadcast live on ESPN.

Read the full story here >> Sydney Kings’ roster issues examined as slow start to NBL26 campaign continues